My mom was not a Martha Stewart, but I can’t really complain. She had given up everything for me, even her own birthday. She had given birth in the back seat of an old beat up hot rod, running from a controlling family back in Louisiana and headed west racing the sun. If she hadn’t stopped to eat and rest her aching back in the parking lot of a small town cafe outside of Austin Texas perhaps things would have turned out differently for both of us.
Adopted by grandma and papa Cooper, and finding herself among the welcoming community, she finished high school and earned a business degree which she used to start her career as a real estate agent. Grandma passed away shortly after, her greatest wish fulfilled. I was five years old then and it has been me and mom against the world since, living in a 3 bedroom two story red brick home 2 blocks from where she had given birth.
Every time my birthday came, mom would keep me out of school and we would spend an entire 24 hours doing anything that I wanted. It didn’t matter if it was street hockey or rolling around in the mud she would do it and we would both laugh and play. But it was always about ME and what I wanted.
I started realizing that mom no longer had a birthday of her own. So after everything she had done for me I wanted to make this, her 34th birthday, about her. I had to be sneaky of course or we never would have made it past breakfast. Thankfully grandma had left me a bit of money for situations just like this.
The day started at 8:00am as I woke her with a breakfast in bed. I had woken early to prepare a delicious tray of creamy strawberry crêpes, a bowl of blueberries and whip cream, coffee, and a large glass of orange juice. I had spent days practicing and according to Mary Jane, my cooking coach, they were perfect.
My hands trembled and the tray shook in my arms. I watched ripples form in the coffee and prayed softly that it didn’t spill. Mom would never get out of bed this early without a stiff cup of coffee to wake her up. I found her door unlocked and gently pushed it open.
This was my first look at Sarah Le Blanc,. Not mom or Sarah Cooper the real estate agent but the real Sarah Le Blanc, the lost and abandoned girl who had become a woman at 16. She was beautiful with her long blonde hair held by a scrap of yarn, just a few strays clinging to her white satin pillow case. Her pearl colored skin seemed to glow in the morning light.
She had kicked the blankets off and was lying half on her side and half on her stomach, her firm round cheeks laid bare. A long T shirt was bunched up around her back. She had one hand clutching a pillow and the other appeared to be trapped between her legs.
Unsure what else to do I sat the tray down on the nightstand before leaning over and kissing her softly on the cheek. She groaned softly and stretched into a yawn as she quickly lifted the sheet to cover her legs. Turning towards me she looked at the tray and a sparkling smile stretched across her lips.
“For me? Oh how sweet.” She cooed.